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Category Archives: Classic Shell

A sad announcement came from the developer of the popular Classic Shell app today which restores the Windows 7 or XP style Start menu along with some classic XP-era Windows Explorer features. Ivo Beltchev, who is the person behind the project, today announced that he has discontinued the development of the app but anyone else is free to continue working on it because it is now open source.

Classic Shell is the world's most popular Start menu replacement for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 along with a bunch of unique customization options for Explorer and the Taskbar. The new version comes with a number of interesting changes. Here is what's new in this release.

Classic Shell includes one of the most popular Start menu replacements for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 along with a bunch of unique customization options for Explorer and Taskbar. When we cover various tips and tricks related to Classic Shell, our readers often ask us about good looking Start menu skins. Today, I would like to share a collection of excellent skins for Classic Shell to style your Start menu.

Classic Shell is one of most popular Start menu replacements for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 along with a bunch of unique customization options for Explorer and Taskbar. A new version of the program brings a significant number of changes to the app. Here is the list of changes available in this release.

Classic Shell as almost everyone using Windows knows is the gold standard of Start menus. It firmly entrenched itself at the top place by bundling an amazing level of customization and features. Although Microsoft returned the Start Menu in Windows 10, they have been generally taking out functionality, simplifying things instead of keeping them powerful. Let's see today why a free app like Classic Shell is still worth using in Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or even Windows 7.

One of the most frequent questions readers ask me is how to set the desired shutdown action for the Classic Start Menu, which is a part of the Classic Shell app. Although the required option is available even in the Basic Settings mode, which is on by default, users are still getting confused. Here is how it should be done.

Classic Shell, the well known, free tool which improves upon the Windows Start Menu, File Explorer and Internet Explorer got an update. The new release is available for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. Here are the notable changes you need to know about.

Many Windows 10 complain that their Start menu is laggy and slow. It opens slowly and sometimes it doesn't open at all. This is because the Windows 10 menu uses XAML and WinRT APIs. Recently, I posted a tutorial on how to speed up the Windows 10 Start menu without using third party tools, but it just cannot be as fast as a native app written in C++. Today, I would like to share with you an alternative way, which involves the famous third party app, Classic Shell. Not only does it have far more customization but it operates much faster too.

If you read Winaero regularly, you might be familiar with the awesome Classic Shell application. It became famous thanks to an excellent Start menu implementation with several styles from classic Windows 95-like to modern Windows 7-like. Classic Shell also provides a number of very useful fixes to significantly improve Explorer's behavior and revive its must have features like customizable toolbars or status bar size. Users who have already installed Windows 10 Technical Preview 3 Build 9879 are facing a strange issue that Classic Shell cannot be installed. The operating system simply does not allow the installer to do its work!

As a Windows user who is forced to use Explorer very often in Windows 7 and Windows 8, I am trying to make it more convenient than it is out of the box.The main issue with Explorer is that it's not customizable, as it was in Windows XP. Even though Windows 8 has the Quick Access toolbar, it has very small icons and does not allow any custom buttons. While it is possible to add any desired command to the command bar of Explorer in Windows 7, they can only be text buttons, without icons. So I decided to install the awesome freeware, Classic Shell.